Paul Johnson is feeling unloved these days. He wants more than Georgia Tech is prepared to give.

“We are way behind and there is no question about it,” Johnson said. “I would like to see (new) facilities and whatever. If you look at the other schools we are behind in most every aspect from facilities to staff to salaries or whatever.”

On Saturday at a press conference, Yellow Jacket athletic director Mike Bobinski said he feels like the football program is fully funded and there have been no requests for new facilities or additional staff. Johnson refuted that notion.

“We had a plan for a locker room and a locker room would be great. We had several meetings and they drew it up and it would be big for the program,” Johnson said. “It is about recruiting when kids walk in that is their impression (of the school). It is like you guys know it is an arms race. If you are not building you are falling farther and farther behind.”

So, all it takes to make Tech a recruiting powerhouse are a few shiny distractions? If the locker rooms are nice enough, maybe the genius figures the kids won’t even need to talk with him before committing. He really is jonesing for a place that recruits itself, isn’t he? Although it would be a shame for recruits not to get a sense of his real warmth before signing day…

19 responses to “At Georgia Tech, an arms race with no arms”

Paul Johnson is a perfect fit for Tech in every single way. Ironically, because he is such an a-hole (which is a plus there), he’s probably going to bolt as soon as anyone else so much as shows him just the least bit of interest.

This doesn’t make any sense. I’ve always read on Stingtalk how all the tech grads are instant millionaires upon leaving. Just gather up a few donors, get donated drawings and construction, and you’re done.

Lmao, I almost spit up my coffee when reading this. Also, the fact the (soon to be former) Tech AD mentions the lack of the UGA home game resulting in $1.5M less annual review tells us how much Tech really needs that UGA home game. It’s unlikely, but I’d hate to think how bad it would be for them financially if we ended that rivalry.

Checkout some of the comments in the article. My favorite is “Yesterday’s AJC article said it all. Tech football projecting a $2.5 million loss for this year. I don’t pretend to know the answers, but Tech football is in bad shape. CPJ calling out Athletic Assn & donors in the paper, Alums not happy with CPJ/Offense, etc. No money to spend + disgruntled alums = Rough Times on The Flats.”

The guy convinced the best wide receiver in a generation to play with Reggie Ball in college. Can you imagine the numbers Calvin Johnson would have put up with David Greene, DJ Shockley and Matthew Stafford throwing him the ball instead of tech QBs who couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn with a ball?

One thing to say for Chan is that he could go into a recruit’s living room and say I know the NFL and what it takes to get there. We may not end up having the best team, but I can help you get where you want to go. Fish Fry doesn’t even have that as a sales pitch.

When you have a school that offers very little outside of an excellent (but very limited) education, you better have an excellent product to sell in other areas. A coach who hates recruiting (and is really bad at it) doesn’t help. Great fan support would be necessary, but pictures of a student sitting in the upper deck alone humped over his computer doesn’t get that. A great social environment would help except the male/female ratio is ridiculously bad on North Avenue. Finally, a system that prepares guys for the pros would be the ultimate trump card, but no one with NFL ambition wants to play in Fish Fry’s system either on offense (service academy offense) or defense (constantly being cut in practice). Throw in the issue with facilities and finances, and you have a difficult product to sell.

The tech people didn’t understand all of this when they hired the Genius. Navy didn’t try to recruit players with NFL ambition. They recruited students who happened to be athletic and wanted to become naval officers. There aren’t enough students who happen to be P5 athletic quality who want to become engineers. The ones that do decide to go to Stanford, Duke or elsewhere where if things work out they may have a shot at the NFL, or if not, they still have a great education and opportunity to fall back on.

All of this is a formula for tech to become Vandy bad in a few years. Hopefully, no one on tech’s campus is smart enough to figure this out.

Tech needs to take the UGA approach one step further to get nerds in the seat, Cut off WiFi to the entire campus except at Mark Richt field on game days. They would sell out. Nobody could tell you the score but they would have a fool (yes I spelled it that way on purpose) stadium. That is a place more WiFi would actually be a huge selling point.

Quote Of The Day

“I’m thrilled for this day to get here, and I’m excited to find out how a lot of these new guys learn. These practices are not easy, and the idea is to create adversity for your team and find out who your leaders are.” — Kirby Smart, Chattanooga Times Free Press, 8/1/17